The task of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate is not only and even not so much to "catch," to "expose" (this is the task of the courts, with which the Inspectorate comes into close contact, but is by no means identical to them) — as to know how to correct.

Skillful correction in good time — that is the principal task of the Inspectorate.

In order to know how to correct, it is necessary, in the first place, to study and to have studied the conduct of affairs in one or another institution, enterprise, department, etc.; in the second place, to carry out in good time the necessary practical changes, to realize them in actual fact.

In the conduct of affairs by various and heterogeneous enterprises, institutions, departments, etc., there is much that is similar, and similar in essentials. The task of the Inspectorate is to work out, on the basis of experience gained in business inspection, a group of leading, experienced, knowledgeable persons who would be in a position to formulate questions (with skillful, correct formulation of questions, the very formulation of the questions predetermines the success of the audit and makes correction possible), — to direct the audit and inspection, — to verify correction, etc.

The establishment of reporting, for example, is a fundamental matter in all departments and institutions of the most heterogeneous character. The Inspectorate must know it, must study it, — must be able to verify in the shortest time (by sending a person for half an hour, for an hour to the corresponding office) whether reporting has been established, whether it has been established correctly, what shortcomings there are in its establishment, how to correct them, etc.

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V. I. LENIN

The methods of establishing reporting, the methods of punishment for shortcomings, the methods of "catching" deception, the methods of verifying execution in actual fact — all these must be studied in the Inspectorate, collected, summarized. There should be in the Inspectorate a list of institutions, departments, provinces that have established tolerable reporting: let there be only 1 out of 100, even 1 out of 1000, no matter — as long as systematically, unflinchingly, we wage a persistent and unremitting struggle to broaden the sphere of application of the good example. There should be in the Inspectorate a calendar table showing the course of this struggle, our successes and defeats in this struggle.

Acquaintance with a preliminary draft of a report on the work of the fuel organs and on the growth of the autumn crisis (of fuel) of 1921 convinces me that the foundation of the work has not been properly laid in the Inspectorate. In this draft report there is neither study of the work, nor an approach to correction.

For example, a three-week period (of 1921) is compared with 1920. Bare totals are taken. The comparison is incorrect, because it does not account for either (1) the difference in food supply (both spring 1921 and the entire first half of 1921 were placed in special conditions by virtue of the transition to the food tax), or (2) the crop failure of 1921.

Danishevsky points out: provinces that were not touched by crop failure gave in 1921 more than 100% fulfillment of the three-week program; the crop-failure provinces — an enormous deficit in the fulfillment of assignments.

There is no study whatever in the report.

The shortcomings in reporting in the Chief Timber Committee were apparently indicated correctly in the preliminary report of the Inspectorate. Danishevsky himself recognizes this. This is proven. The reporting is poor.

But precisely on this fundamental question the Inspectorate cannot in its preliminary report limit itself to the "thesis": "the reporting is poor, there is no reporting." But what then did the comrades from the Inspectorate do to correct its establishment? Many prominent workers of the Inspectorate personally participated in the winter and spring of 1921 in a whole series

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